Thursday, September 14, 2006

I took some rose cuttings of our favorite fragrant rose this week. I've never really tried growing anything from cuttings but I did research and followed some instructions in one of our gardening manuals and hopefully in a year's time we'll have several new little bushes. I hope. I've been thinking it would be nice to have more roses though Partner says we don't really have room. But I think we always have more room. We have several shrubs dotted here and there that neither of us are extremely fond of, so they could come up and roses could replace them. I was reading Rebecca recently and at one point Mrs de Winter talks about having roses in a bowl. I thought it would be nice to have enough roses to put in a bowl. Though I have enough dahlias; maybe I should get a bowl.

I also planted a bag of daffodils yesterday. I remembered how long winter can be here and how nice it is to finally see some flowers in spring. I thought it would be really good to have enough daffodils flowering to pick them for vases. So I bought three bags of them with 75 bulbs a bag. It took me an hour to get the one bag in. I planted them in twos and threes and along with some bluebells/wood hyacinths that I divided from the front earlier in the year. I figure I can plant one other bag in the back yard and the last in the front yard. And I will still have a few other bulbs to go down: bluebells, blue iris, and snakeheads (I can't remember their real name). And that's not including tulips which I'll put down in November. Maybe I'll get three bags of them too.

Friday, September 08, 2006

The piano got repaired and tuned. It took the man about three hours to do it and I even had to assist at one point. I made him a cup of tea at the beginning but I should have made him another, it lasted so long. The event took place about ten minutes after I got home from work so I was a bit tired and just wanted to sleep, but I stayed in the room and played my video game with the sound off (obviously). At one point there was a loud resonating ping and the word "balls" was uttered. He had been tightening pegs and glueing them into place so I was worried that one had just popped out; apparently it was actually the sound of a string breaking. So I'll get that replaced in a few weeks when he's ordered it. Luckily it's a bass string, meaning there were two of them for the key; the piano is still playable. And playable it is. I played it for about an hour and a half that evening. I got out three of my favorite piano books: Bach's keyboard music, Mozarts sonatas for piano, and Chopin's selected waltzes. I want to get more Chopin music and other Romantic-era piano music. Sometimes it's good to make a lot of noise.

Today is Friday and I get a week and a bit off starting today. I'm not working till the Monday after next. I've asked Partner to see about getting the week off himself. He has a very good excuse: he broke his shoulder last weekend. At the beginning of the summer he broke his finger playing baseball. At the end of the season he broke his shoulder. We had to go to the emergency room yet again and get more x-rays and get poked more. At one point a doctor touched him in a certain spot and Partner nearly cried and began cursing like he was the devil's mouthpiece. I think we'll all be glad to know that he's not actually possessed by Satan though I've never heard such blasphemy.

So Partner hasn't been sleeping well because his shoulder is so painful. They can't immobilize it with plaster so he just has a sling. I think he should take time off work; it's his right arm and he really can't do anything productive including drive and cook and type. He'd be more secure at home with not as many chances to jar it. Plus he'd be with me for a week. And that's always nice.

Friday, September 01, 2006

I've been thinking about higher education but it kind of makes me nervous. I've done a little research into costs of universities around here, and there's like a set amount that every student has to pay, regardless. So I've been racking my brains trying to think of a job I could get for about a year that pays a lot in order to save up for next year's classes. Partner suggested signing up at a temp agency and doing office temp work. The only experience I have with temp agencies is through one of my friends who got jobs doing housekeeping by them. Now I would do housekeeping myself except I think it wouldn't pay any better than the job I currently have. The job I currently have pays £5.60 an hour. And I think the exchange rate is about $1.90 per pound, so that's 5.6 x 1.9 = $10.64. Wow I just did that sum and I didn't realize it was that much myself. But still it's only a part time job and it's only 35p more than the minimum wage here. And I don't think I can do a kitchen job full time because of my back, yet I do need a full time job. Partner says I can do office temp work since I can type and navigate a computer. But getting a new job makes me even more nervous. However, I need the money so I guess I should try.

September already...I'm hoping for a sunnier month. There were dead leaves on the pavement in London when we were there last weekend. I saw a flock of ducks flying, but not in formation; they had just been frightened out of a pond. At least, I think that's what they were doing and not migrating. Our dahlias are now almost all flowering, since they are a late summer/autumn plant. They're the last of the flowers to open, but most of the summer flowers are still going pretty strong. And we have ripe tomatoes every day now.